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Trey Abdella (American, 1994) - Knotted (2021)

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Decided to add more to the ref sheets of The Hikikomori and “Himiko”.

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Weird dumb animal that is weird and dumb

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i got inspired

original image under cut

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An old dream I had where I was stuck in a cave

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Part 1 of that DREDGE thing I talked about earlier.

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twinks when they JUST cant quite kill you

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*…Your vision narrows.

Roaring Knight but she/her armor is MADE of shadow crystal.

Featuring some close-ups cuz im proud of the detailingggg.

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Susie Deltarune at the start of Chapter 1: I don't have time for this isekai nonsense, I gotta get home so I can go back to wallowing in my self hatred and lashing out at a world that doesn't understand me. Susie Deltarune at the end of Chapter 4: I've only had friends for two and a half days, but if anything happened to them I would kill everyone in the room and then myself.

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Xenomorphitude

Or: Rating the Xenomorph Knock-offs of D&D and Pathfinder

The xenomorph of Alien, Aliens and a bunch of other movies that aren’t very good is one of the most distinctive film monsters. Which means it’s one of the ones that’s most widely copied, ripped off and cited as “inspiration”. Multiple monsters with decidedly xenomorph-like characteristics have appeared in D&D and PFRPG over the decades. Here’s a survey, in loosely chronological order.

Xill

This is included mostly as a formality. The xill isn’t inspired so much by Alien as by Alien’s own inspiration. Voyage of the Space Beagle is a SF novel collecting multiple short stories, one of which features the “ixtl”, which lays its eggs in a crew-member and cannot be killed with conventional weaponry, so is launched into space. The “xill”, first appearing in D&D 1e’s Fiend Folio, is a take on that monster, although it gives them weapons and makes them explicitly sapient. It was promoted to the core Monster Manual in 3.x, which is why it appeared in Pathfinder RPG (and has ended up more prominent there than in “real” D&D for the last 15 years.

Oddly, the xill’s most recent appearance in D&D is in the 5e Mordenkainen’s Folio of Fiends, a semi-canonical book written by Mike Mearls and sold online for charity. The xill’s appearance in that book is the most xenomorph like yet. And yet, it’s said that they abduct people to the Ethereal Plane for “unknown purposes”. It’s to lay eggs in them, guys. We know this.

Xenomorphitude: 2/10, included mostly for completeness sake. 6/10 for that 5e version.

Yitsan

Appearing in the Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium II, this is visually and mechanically a straightforward take on an Alien ripoff (although I love the pointy ears!). Unlike the original, the yitsan isn’t a parasitoid. Presumably the authors of the book realized that in D&D, a character that gets something latched onto them from a mysterious egg is going to get cure disease at the first possible opportunity. Instead, its eggs mimic gold coins, so the PCs will be happy to take them aboard! Xenomorphitude: 8/10. Pretty darn xenomorphy.

Hivebrood

This is a Mystara monster. They seem to be a slantwise take on the Tyranids of Warhammer 40,000 as much as a conventional xenomorph clone. They reproduce by implanting their larvae into humanoids, the hybrid stage of which is called the broodling. These broodlings psychically transmit their skills to a controller, which can then grant them to the various warriors of the hive. Interestingly, they’re neutral in alignment as opposed to some variation of evil.

Xenomorphitude: 3/10. If not for the broodlings, I’d peg them as just another colonial insect species, like the formians or aspis.

Kythons

Moving now into 3rd edition, these guys are definitely stolen from the Tyranids, as they were originally written to give Monte Cook an excuse to use Tyranid miniatures in his D&D game. They win points for flagrancy of the ripoff by laying eggs that look like “wet stones”—but these can also supply weapons instead of just new individuals! Hey, that’s a thing the Tyranids can (sort of) do! They also don’t have a Queen Alien, instead mutating into “slaymasters” or “slaughterkings”. Because the Book of Vile Darkness is nothing if not subtle. 

Xenomorphitude: 7/10. You look at these guys and go, “oh, it’s a xenomorph”, but they have enough tricks to keep you on your toes. Most of these tricks were stolen from a different xenomorph ripoff, but still.

Grendelspawn

Appearing in the d20 Modern Urban Arcana book, they basically have no flavor text except “yeah, they kill indiscriminately. The hunters protect the queen”. Apparently they can be trained as guard animals. Weyland-Yutani had the right idea, it seems.

Xenomorphitude: 10/10. Take this one to the bank, boys. It’s just a xenomorph with eyes. The most interesting thing about it is how brazen it is.

Kruthiks

The kruthiks seem like a way to water down the kythons to make them palatable to publish in a more mainstream book than Vile Darkness. They come in three basic varieties, although the largest being a “hive lord” wasn’t established until 4th edition. They have also been getting progressively less like a xenomorph in appearance, with the 5e version being decidedly more reptilian:

Xenomorphitude: 5/10. Basically the most generic “yeah, it’s a xenomorph but…” I can think of.

Essence Reaver

From the Secrets of Sarlona book in Eberron, these creatures are described as being “wingless dragons” that hunt down psionics users and drain their mental energy before eating them. Looking at their stats, only the presence of a barbed tail might make you think ���xenomorph”, but then you get to that illustration!

Xenomorphitude: 3/10. You got your dragon in my xenomorph! You got your xenomorph in my dragon!

Akata

I’m using the Starfinder illustration because it’s better, but these alien tentacle dogs appeared before Pathfinder RPG split off from D&D 3.5, in Children of the Void. Their bite infects people with their worm-like larvae, which turn them into slug-tongued zombies until the tongue breaks off and grows up into a new akata.

Xenomorphitude: 1/10. I had to be reminded that they’re supposed to be xenomorph analogues. The zombies remind me more of Night of the Creeps.

Lunarma

Tentacled parasitoids from space, the lunarma seem to be the crossover of the Venn diagram between “xenomorph” and “metroid”. I do like the barbed defense ability—the fact that fighting a xenomorph in melee will get you killed by its passive defenses is something that gets ignored by most ripoffs and clones.

Xenomorphitude: 4/10. Different enough to be its own thing, similar enough to make the inspiration clear.

The Hive

Appearing in Horror Adventures for Pathfinder, the Hive creatures have a proper queen/warrior/larva caste system and a parasitoid life cycle with a twist. If you get infected with the larvae but cured, you can start to mutate into an aberrant creature, making use of the Corruption mechanics introduced in this book. It’s the rare xenomorph ripoff that takes inspiration from the later movies (namely, it appears to be “what if Alien: Resurrection made a little more sense?”).

Xenomorphitude: 9/10. About as blatant a ripoff can get without making copyright lawyers’ ears perk up. 

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Dark World based on my room... something like that

I think they'd all live in trailers since I move from dorm to dorm and keep most of my stuff in boxes

A little story about the bear:

I've had her since I was an infant. She's more or less as old as I am. In my teen years, I kept her stowed away in a box in fear of her falling apart. But when I moved to my mom's place, she asked "Where's your teddy?"

"In that box," I said. "It's old and it might fall apart in the wash."

"Well, I still think it'd be much happier if it got to spend the rest of its days at your side." said my mom.

So I took her out and put her on my bed.

I looked up how to repair teddy bears and replenished her stuffing. I made overalls for her out of my mom's old shirt.

I put her through the wash and dryer once in a while and she always comes out as intact as ever. I take her along when I go on long travels.

She will always keep me company.

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Player soul

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i can't get over this stupid fucking animation. i love how comically high the framerate is compared to all of his other animations. blud looks like he's boutta roundhouse kick silver the hedgehog

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dont worry shes ok :) just sad

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